Category: Politics/News

The saga over Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s health seems to ebb and flow from the headlines almost daily. Part of the mystery relates to the amount of information shared with the public. We know Ginsburg broke ribs and while providing care for her ribs doctors found malignant lesions in her lungs that were promptly removed. She…

How better to wrap up the calendar year than by examining the President’s take on his relationship with the Supreme Court – especially since the Court was one of President Trump’s favorite topics of discussion this past year. The context of these references ranged from from specificity to generalities and from praise to criticism. Many of the…

Justices of the Supreme Court rarely give public comments on words or actions of members of the elected branches of the federal government. This made the recent spat between Chief Justice John Roberts and President Donald Trump, when the two intrinsically debated the role of partisanship in the federal judiciary, all the more surprising and…

Supreme Court nominees’ confirmation hearings involve much dialogue between the nominees and senators. In two chaotic days of hearings for Judge Kavanaugh, we have seen a full spectrum of behavior from both sides of the aisle. Showboating aside, this is a genuinely important hearing for a crucial seat on the Court and hence emotions are running…

The Democrats are in a precarious position in the latest battle for a seat on the Supreme Court. Many Democrats oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination and will not vote to confirm him. Others are requesting that the Senate hold off on voting on Kavanaugh’s confirmation until the National Archives produces the record setting million or so pages…

Even though the Supreme Court is not in session it is far from out of the news. With the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh, much of the conversation now surrounds expectations for the a fierce confirmation battle – possibly one of the most fierce we have ever seen. Some speculate that notwithstanding the drama surrounding the failure…

The discussion over who will fill the Supreme Court vacancy has dominated much of the political conversation since Justice Kennedy announced his retirement from the Supreme Court on June 27. Last night, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, an obvious choice and the one I predicted in December 2017, was announced as nominee. When Kennedy’s retirement rumors previously circulated,…

With less than one week left until President Trump announces his nominee to fill the second SCOTUS vacancy since he took office, not all names are getting equal attention. President Trump indicated the other day that he narrowed down his initial list to five finalists. While all members on this whittled down list are not known, a few judges…

This Supreme Court term was nerve racking for some conservatives (mainly unwarranted), most liberals (with good reason), and probably for some of the justices too, and yet all for different rationales. Below I’ll go through what may have caused this tension and why members of these three groups might have felt it. Before the Court’s…

It seems out of a script by the writers of the film Groundhog Day. At the end of the term each year Court watchers await the impending retirement of a justice. Stories break in the months before June trying to sort through the imperfect information concerning such retirement plans. In recent years, speculation of an…

The Solicitor General’s Office (OSG) has a special relationship with the Supreme Court. In the role of adviser the Solicitor General is often referred to as the 10th Justice. The OSG enjoys much higher than average success in bringing cases to the Court and is even asked to give its opinions on whether the Court should…

On June 1, the Trump Administration filed its application to stay the Fourth Circuit’s preliminary injunction against the attempted travel ban and petition for cert in the case. While this is only the Supreme Court’s first potential entry point into this dispute, it marks an opportunity for the Court to rule on a central item…